CONTENTS
itle Page
Dedication
Blessing for Mourners
Blessing for Consolers
cknowledgments
reface
NTRODUCTION
ART
I.
WHY WE SAY KADDISH
NE.
WHAT KADDISH MEANS
WO. KADDISH IN PRACTICE
ART
II.
RESPECT FOR THE DYING, RESPECT FOR THE DEAD
THREE. CARE OF THE DYING
FOUR. HONORING THE DEAD
ANINUT: THE HOLLOW DAYS
KEVOD HA-MET: CARING FOR THE DEAD
FIVE. THE FUNERAL
PART III.
COMPASSION FOR THE BEREAVED
SIX. THE LANDSCAPE OF MOURNING
GRIEF
TAKING COMFORT
SEVEN. SHIVA: THE SEVEN DAYS
EIGHT. THE FIRST YEAR
SHLOSHIM: THE FIRST MONTH
SHANAH: A YEAR’S TIME
YAHRZEIT
NINE. THE CONSOLATIONS OF MEMORY
AT THE CEMETERY
YIZKOR
TZEDAKAH
MEMORIALS: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
TEN. PARTICULAR LOSSES
CHILDREN AS MOURNERS
MOURNING NON-JEWISH LOVED ONES
STILLBIRTH, NEONATAL LOSS, MISCARRIAGE
SUICIDE
PART IV.
EIGHT MORE WAYS TO SAY KADDISH
TRANSLATIONS
THE ORPHAN’S KADDISH, BY EVERETT FOX
KADDISH, FROM THE MACHZOR FOR ROSH HASHANAH AND YOM KIPPUR
KADDISH, FROM VETAHER LIBEYNU, SIDDUR OF CONGREGATION BETH EL OF THE SUDBURY RIVER VALLEY
INTERPRETATIONS
KADDISH, BY MARGE PIERCY
KADDISH, BY HYAM PLUTZIK
INTRODUCTION TO THE KADDISH, BY S. Y. AGNON
REFLECTIONS
MOURNER’S KADDISH FOR EVERYDAY, BY DEBRA CASH
EACH OF US HAS A NAME, BY MARCIA FALK
PPENDIX:
PLANNING FOR THE UNTHINKABLE
WRITING A WILL
HEALTH-CARE DIRECTIVES
FINAL ARRANGEMENTS
ETHICAL WILLS
Glossary
ibliography and Resources
Notes
ermissions Acknowledgments
chocken Books
bout the Author
Other Books by Anita Diamant
Copyright
For my brother
Harry Diamant
A BLESSING FOR MOURNERS
My brothers and sisters who are worn out and crushed by this mourning, let your hearts consider this:
This is the path that has existed from the time of creation and will exist forever. Many have drunk
from it and many will yet drink. As was the first meal so shall be the last.
My brothers and sisters, may the One who comforts comfort you.
Blessed is the One who comforts the mourners.
A BLESSING FOR CONSOLERS
My brothers and sisters who perform acts of loving-kindness, children of those who perform acts of
loving-kindness—who follow the way of our father Abraham and our mother Sarah.
My brothers and sisters may the One Who rewards good ness reward you.
Blessed is the One Who rewards deeds of goodness.1
V’imru, Amen.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MY DEEPEST THANKS TO THE IMPOSSIBLY BUSY PEOPLE who took the time to read and comment on early
chapter drafts: David Browning, M.S.W., director of Safe Passage, a bereavement support program,
Rabbi Barbara Penzner, Rabbi Carl Perkins, Rabbi David Wolfman. They are, each one, generous and
wise, erudite and practical, patient and supportive friends and teachers: todah rabbah.
I am forever thanking Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, which is as it should be.
For their various contributions, including interviews, conversations, poetry, and permissions, thank
you to Debra Cash, Howard Cooper, David Dechter, Lori Diamond, and Barbara Levine of Levine’s
Funeral Home in Brookline, Massachusetts, Miriam Drukman of the Jewish Cemetery Association of
Massachusetts, Rabbi Amy Eilberg, Marcia Falk, Rabbi Nancy Flam, Professor Everett Fox, Robyn
Greenberg, Rabbi Linda Holtzman, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, Roberta Leviton, Rabbi Avis D. Miller,
Edward Myers, Rebecca Newman, Danny Siegel, Cindy Spittel of the Newton Memorial Art
Company, Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, Arnie Zar-Kessler, Lorel Zar-Kessler, cantor at congregation Beth
El of the Sudbury River Valley, and Rabbi Elaine Zecher.
My thanks to Arthur Samuelson and Jennifer Turvey at Schocken Books, for everything they did.
Writing a book about death and mourning is not easy. My husband and daughter were models of
forbearance and support, my friends were patient and reassuring. Thank you all.
PREFACE
MY FATHER DIED A GOOD DEATH. HE SAID GOOD-BYE TO the people he loved and made his wishes known.
His end was peaceful and dignified. Yet, even though I knew it was coming, the shock of his death was
staggering. The world that I had known was gone and I would never be the same. A friend who lives
above the San Andreas Fault in Los Angeles described the feeling as “a private earthquake.”
During the days and weeks following my father’s death, I explored the quiet devastation left by his
loss. I assumed a new role and became a mourner. As lonely as I was without my dad, I was not alone.
My family and my community comforted me, and I felt myself traveling down a path made smooth by
centuries of Jewish mourners.
I chose to “sit shiva,” staying at home for a week to fully experience the overwhelming first stage
of grief. Friends, neighbors, and members of my synagogue came to the door, carrying food. I was
hugged and kissed, stroked and patted, cared for in the most elemental ways. My rabbi sat with me at
the kitchen table in the quiet of one afternoon. I reminisced about my father; he described the
trajectory of grief.
Mostly, I remember very little of what people said to me. But the sound of their voices, their
presence in my home, and the cards and notes that arrived in the mail, were all deeply consoling. As
heavy as grief is, they bore me up.
On three of the evenings during my week of shiva, a prayer service led by members of my
congregation was held in our living room. Before we recited the final prayer, the Kaddish, people
spoke about my father. My husband and I shared memories of him. My then-nine-year-old daughter
read a poem she’d written in his memory. The few of our friends who knew him told stories, too, and
after a few minutes, people who had never met my father knew that he loved a good joke and lively
conversation. His eternal optimism and faith in humanity brightened the room.
Then we said Kaddish: Yit-ga-dal v’yit-ka-dash sh’mei ra-ba.
I knew the words by heart from years of synagogue services, but the communal prayer was utterly
transformed. Now it was a mantra of sadness and longing, a personal petition for peace and
completion, an extended “Amen” to another exhausting day.
A candle burned in my house all that week in my father’s memory. For the month after his death,
his name was spoken in the synagogue at Sabbath services, where I was treated with special tenderness
by strangers as well as friends.
In addition to notes and cards, the mail brought news of many tributes to my father, donations that
reflected his values and beliefs. There were contributions to the memorial garden at my synagogue,
gifts to the library at his temple, contributions to Amnesty International and to an organization that
cares for righteous gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. I continue to make charitable
contributions in his memory. I always will.
Every year, I light a memorial candle on the anniversary of his death. On Yom Kippur, I go to
Yizkor, the memorial service, and stand with all the other mourners to listen for his name on the long,
long list. And whenever I say Kaddish, I remember his smile, and it sustains me.
My father’s death taught me the meaning of the word “blessing.” His memory is a palpable blessing
in my life, a reminder to stay in touch with beauty, to be kind, to laugh.
His death also taught me new lessons about the blessings of Jewish ritual and community. The
structure of Jewish tradition (sitting shiva, setting the first month apart, attending services to say
Kaddish, counting myself among the mourners) guided me through dark days. I explored new depths
of connection to the synagogue where I had been a member for eighteen years. The outpouring of
support and affection from members of Congregation Beth El of the Sudbury River Valley was due not
simply to the presence of compassionate individuals in the congregation; the communal response to
my loss was rooted in the ancient, holy requirement—the mitzvah— that Jews comfort the bereaved.
This book was hard to write. Philosophers and theologians have long recommended the contemplation
of death as a way to stay in touch with the beauty of life. But contemplating death is so exhausting, I
wonder whether human beings have an instinctive aversion to the subject. We cannot dwell too long
on the idea that each of us will die, that all of us will grieve.
But grief is an inescapable condition of humanness—like the opposable thumb, like laughter. In
this, we have no choice; if we live long enough, we are bound to lose people that we love. However,
we do have a choice in how we grieve.
If you are reading these words looking for ways to help console a friend who is in mourning, I hope
this book will help you in that sad but sacred task.
If you read these words while mourning the loss of someone you love, I hope that Saying Kaddish
will enable you to make consoling choices in your grief. I hope that the Jewish practices described
here will help you find solace and create meaning out of the chaos within and the chaos all around
you.
I hope you have wonderful memories of the one who died, and that those memories will sustain you.
I pray that you find yourself in a community that will comfort you.
I pray you find peace as you continue on your way.
ANITA DIAMANT
Newton, Massachusetts
January 1998—Tevet 5758
INTRODUCTION
IN THE PAST, WHEN A JEW DIED, NO ONE ASKED, “WHEN should we schedule the funeral?” or “How much
would you like to spend on a casket?” or “Where will she be buried?” Members of the hevra kadisha—
the local volunteer burial society—simply appeared and began preparing the body for burial in the
community cemetery at a funeral that was like all the other Jewish funerals.
The mourners knew what to do, too. They ripped their clothing and sat on the floor. They stayed
home where prayer services were held three times a day until the first week of mourning was over.
Heartbroken as mourners might be, they were not alone, since neighbors and friends would fill the
house with food and sympathetic faces.
In other words, Jews learned how to bury the dead and how to comfort the bereaved simply by
living their lives.
It doesn’t work that way anymore. Jewish families are scattered and the community is dispersed.
American Jews have, for several generations, lost touch with the context and continuities of their own
mourning traditions, following secular burial customs and adopting secular attitudes about
bereavement—including the larger culture’s tendency to underestimate the power of grief and the
impact of loss.
Death itself has become something of a stranger. In the past, life spans were shorter and the tragedy
of infant mortality touched most families. People usually died at home, surrounded by loved ones,
including children. Funerals, like weddings, were not invitational events, but community-wide
gatherings.
But today, it is possible to reach the age of forty without ever attending a funeral or visiting a house
of mourning. In addition to great advances in medical science, death and dying are removed from the
flow of daily life. Despite the increased use of home-based hospice care, most people die in hospitals
and nursing homes. Thus, death comes as a terrifying shock, leaving the bereaved unprepared and
adrift. What do I do now?
Saying Kaddish answers that question for contemporary liberal Jews seeking answers from their
own tradition. The totality of Jewish mourning customs and traditions, laws and practices, creates a
temporary home for the bereft, a sanctuary for loss where healing is possible because weeping is not
only permitted but encouraged.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once described Jewish ritual as “the art of significant forms in time,
as architecture of time,”1 Jewish life-cycle customs and holidays can be thought of as “cathedrals”
made of time.
The blueprint for the mourner’s “cathedral” can be imagined as a series of concentric circles
defined by the passage of the first week, the first month, the first year, and the anniversary of a death.
The innermost circle is the darkest, but as the weeks pass, mourners move from the dimness of
remembering and weeping to the light of rejoicing in the memory of life.
Traditional Jewish law, halachah, is very clear about this process, defining what is permitted and
what is forbidden for the dying, the dead, and the bereaved. While there is great comfort in
understanding the architecture of Jewish mourning customs, this knowledge is only the beginning for
non-Orthodox Jews—Conservative, Reconstructionist, Reform, and unaffiliated—who tend to view
halachah as reference point and guide rather than mandate.2 Liberal Jews committed to burying and
mourning their dead within a clearly Jewish framework often face questions and choices that are
outside the purview of the law.
• Will we be sitting shiva? For how long?
• What do we do with flowers sent to the funeral home?
• If Dad never wore a prayer shawl, would it be disrespectful to him to have his body wrapped in
one for burial?
Contemporary life brings heartfelt new questions to the universal crisis of grief:
• How can I, as a Jew-by-choice, mourn for my Catholic father or my Baptist sister?
• How do I reconcile the fact that Mom told us she wanted to be cremated when Judaism opposes
it?
• Since virtually all Jewish mourning rituals pertain to first-degree family members, how can I
grieve for my best friend?
• How do I mourn for a lover?
• How do I mourn my ex-husband, who was the father of my children?
• Is it hypocritical to recite Kaddish if I don’t believe in God?
There are no one-size-fits-all answers to such questions. As in all aspects of Jewish life, there is
enormous variation in the way that Jews bury and mourn their loved ones. Every rabbi and synagogue
has a distinctive set of customs, or minhagim. There are even geographic differences, with the Jews of
one city following certain customs that seem strange in another.
Even so, there is remarkable unanimity in the principles that underlie this diversity. Every Jewish
ritual and custom that surrounds death is guided by two mitzvot, two primary commandments: the
requirement to show respect for the dead —kevod ha-met— and the commandment to provide comfort
for the bereaved —nichum avelim. No matter how differently they are elaborated, these are the dual
cornerstones of the Jewish approach to death and mourning, and the organizing principle of Saying
Kaddish. The goal of this book is to help you express these mitzvot in your own way.
Part I, “Why We Say Kaddish,” explains why this short prayer remains such a powerful religious,
cultural, and communal part of Jewish life. Kaddish (literally “sanctified,” from the same root as
kadosh, or holy) is recited in memory of loved ones who have died. Chapter 1 describes the power of
the ancient Aramaic prayer, which transcends language, and also explores the meaning of its words,
line by line. Chapter 2 places Kaddish in its liturgical and historical context.
Part II, “Respect for the Dying, Respect for the Dead” focuses on how Jews deal with the reality of
death, from the sickroom until the end of the funeral. Chapter 3 describes the Jewish approach to endof-life issues, including how to speak to the dying, and the Jewish deathbed confession called Viddui.
Chapter 4 explains the mitzvah of kevod ha-met, honoring the body, including traditional ways of
preparing it for burial, shrouds, and choosing a coffin. Chapter 5 provides a full description of Jewish
funerals, the centerpiece of which is the eulogy.
In Part III: “Compassion for the Bereaved,” the attention shifts from the care of the dead to caring
for the living. Chapter 6, “The Landscape of Mourning,” describes grief in its various shapes, forms,
and dimensions, from the physical to the familial to the theological; it also provides information about
how to find support and good advice in a difficult time.
Chapters 7 and 8 lay out the architecture of Jewish mourning. “Shiva” details the seven-day period
after the funeral. “The First Year” begins with shloshim, a transitional month when the mourner is
protected from the world even as he or she is encouraged to return to it, and ends with the yahrzeit, the
anniversary of a death.
Chapter 9, “The Consolations of Memory,” describes the custom of unveiling the tombstone, the
Yizkor prayer, and Jewish traditions about visiting a grave. This chapter also explains the role of
prayer and charity in translating grief into healing.
Chapter 10, “Particular Losses,” raises some difficult issues in mourning, including bereaved
children, mourning for non-Jewish loved ones, neonatal loss, and suicide.
Part IV, “Eight More Ways to Say Kaddish,” is a collection of translations, interpretations, and
poetic reflections on the prayer, for use by mourners and comforters.
There is comfort to be found in the pages of Saying Kaddish, but no book can provide the kind of
solace every mourner deserves. For that, you need to feel the embrace of family and friends. You need
to hear an honest eulogy that makes you cry. You need to share your memories. You need other
people.
Although grief is an intensely personal emotion, Judaism treats this time of life as it does all others,
insisting, “It is not good to be alone.”3 Just as Jewish law and custom mandates marriage and
discourages hermits, and prefers the give-and-take of group discussion over solitary study, Jewish
mourners are thrust into the center of their communities. Thus, in order to say Kaddish—which is the
central religious gesture of Jewish bereavement—mourners must stand with at least nine other Jews.
Every Jewish mourner follows the path of all the Jewish mourners who proceeded him or her. When
you rise to say Kaddish, you are shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone who stands or ever stood as you
do, recalling a beloved face that is gone but not forgotten. The traditional prayer of condolence
acknowledges this larger Jewish community: “May the Holy One4 comfort you among all the
mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.”
This is a gathering that transcends time and place.
Truly, you are not alone.
PART I
WHY WE SAY KADDISH
THE MOURNER’S KADDISH
Yit-ga-dal ve’yit-ka-dash sh’mei ra-ba
B’alma di-ve-ra chir-u-tei v’yam-lich mal-chu-tei
b’chai-yei chon u-v-yo-mei-chon
u-v’chai-yei d’chol beit yis-ra-el
ba-a-ga-la u-viz-man ka-riv
v’im-ru amen.
Y’hei shmei ra-ba m’va-rach
l’a-lam u-l’al-mei al-mai-ya
Yit-ba-rach v’yish-ta-bach
v’yit-pa-ar v’yit-ro-mam v’yit-na-sei
v’yit-ha-dar v’yit-a-leh v’yit-ha-lal
sh’mei d’ku-d’sha b’rich hu
l’ei-lah min kol bir-cha-ta v’shi-ra-ta
tush-b’cha-ta v’neh-cheh-ma-ta
da-a-mi-ran b’al-ma
v’im-ru amen
Y’hei shla-ma ra-ba min sh’ma-ya
V’cha-yim a-lei-nu
v’al kol yis-ra-el
v’im-ru amen
O-seh sha-lom bim-ro-mav hu ya-a-seh sha-lom
a-lei-nu v’al kol yis-ra-el
V’im ru, Amen.
Exalted and hallowed be God’s greatness
In this world of Your creation.
May Your will be fulfilled
And Your sovereignty revealed
And the life of the whole house of Israel
Speedily and soon.
And say, Amen.
May You be blessed forever,
Even to all eternity.
May You, most Holy One, be blessed,
Praised and honored, extolled and glorified,
Adored and exalted above all else.
Blessed are You.
Beyond all blessings and hymns, praises and consolations
That may be uttered in this world,
In the days of our lifetime,
And say, Amen.
May peace abundant descend from heaven
With life for us and for all Israel,
And say, Amen.
May God, Who makes peace on high,
Bring peace to all and to all Israel,
And say, Amen.
KADDISH IS A MYSTERY.
It sounds like comfort and feels like a transcendent embrace, and yet, the prayer that is synonymous
with Jewish mourning does not mention death or consolation. It does not speak of loss, sadness, or
bereavement. Nor is there anything about life after death in these brief lines, which seem to echo with
loss and longing.
For most Jews, the literal meaning of Kaddish is either opaque or troubling. “Kaddish” means
“holy” and the prayer is a doxology—a listing of God’s holy attributes. “Blessed, praised and honored,
extolled and glorified, adored and exalted.”
These are hard words for most mourners. After all, this is the same God who ordained or permitted
the death of a loved one. And yet, for centuries Jewish tradition has placed this prayer in the mouths of
people who have no taste for praise.
Jewish mourners begin saying Kaddish at the funerals of their loved ones, and continue reciting it
for the rest of their lives. Jews who never pray say Kaddish. Atheists say Kaddish.
As inconsistent as it may seem, this does not offend Jewish religious sensibilities. Judaism has
always been far less concerned with belief than with action or mitzvah, which means “commandment”
or “sacred obligation.” The tradition mandates saying Kaddish, with clear directions about how,
where, and when it should be said. But halachah, or Jewish law, does not require belief in the words—
or even understanding. It is enough that the mourner just “do the mitzvah” of saying the prayer with
nine other Jews. Which is why Kaddish is always transliterated, so that everyone can participate,
regardless of whether they can read the Hebrew letters or know what they are saying.
This is not as mechanical as it sounds, because it is simply impossible to understand the impact or
value of saying Kaddish without first doing it. The mystery of Kaddish is revealed every time it is
spoken aloud with others. The truth is that the sounds of the words are more important than their
definitions. The text is secondary to the emotional experience of its recitation. The meaning only
comes clear when given communal voice.
Even so, the words are not insignificant. Kaddish addresses the meaning of life and death,
immortality and redemption, the purpose and efficacy of prayer, community, and the ultimate goal of
peace. It even speaks—in its silence—about the predominant Jewish view of the afterlife.
But the language of the prayer is not transparent. Kaddish requires that the mourner wrestle with the
text. Through study and thought, reading and discussion, Kaddish demands that the mourner engage,
connect, and forge a personal connection to it. Although these words have been studied and analyzed
for centuries, every mourner finds new meaning in them, year by year, and line by line.
But the bottom line is startlingly clear. In words and through practice, Kaddish insists that the
mourner turn away from death and choose life.
In this way, Kaddish expresses the essence of Judaism. The rest is commentary.
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT KADDISH MEANS
BEYOND LANGUAGE, KADDISH IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF its words. First and foremost, it is an experience
of the senses. Like music, there is no understanding Kaddish without hearing and feeling it and letting
go of the words.
One of the great ironies of Kaddish is that it was written in a vernacular language so that it could be
understood and led by scholars and laborers alike. Today, of course, Aramaic is far more obscure than
Hebrew.
That the recitation of words long dead can remain a source of consolation testifies to the fact that
Kaddish transcends language. Its comforts are rooted in preverbal ways of knowing. Like a mother’s
heartbeat against the infant ear, Kaddish makes an elemental sound—natural as rain on a wooden roof
and as human as a lullaby.
In addition to being a profession of faith and a doxology, it is also mantra and meditation. In
rhythmic repetition of syllables and sounds, the list of praises (glorified, celebrated, lauded) builds
into a kind of incantation:
Yit-ba-rach v’yish-ta-bach
v’yit-pa-ar v’yit-ro-mam v’yit-na-sei
v’yit-ha-dar v’yit-a-leh v’yit-ha-lal
sh’mei d’ku-d’sha b’rich hu
l’ei-lah min kol bir-cha-ta v’shi-ra-ta
tush-b’cha-ta v’neh-cheh-ma-ta
da-a-mi-ran b’al-ma, v’im-ru amen
On some level, the words are pretext. The real meaning, the subtext, is embedded in the repetition
of “yit” and “ah,” in consonants and vowels. Kaddish whispers “Amen, Amen” like a parent who
murmurs “Hush, hush.”
Kaddish is an essentially aural experience—perhaps another reason the rabbis were so insistent it be
recited within a minyan. Only with a collective voice is there enough energy to lift up the lonely
mourner, the angry mourner, the mourner too hurt to even say “Amen.” The minyan chorus implicitly
reassures the wounded soul, “You are not alone.”
Syllable by syllable, shoulder-to-shoulder, Kaddish is a sigh that affirms the core beliefs and
dreams of the Jewish people: God is beyond us. Understanding is beyond us. Holiness and beauty are
all around us, but beyond us, too. We have work to do. There is hope. Peace is possible.
Peace. Please. Peace.
KADDISH— WORD BY WORD: Even though the words are secondary, they are not incidental. Kaddish is
a love song to God, praising the Holy One in a myriad of ways. Although extolling God sounds as
though it should be a joyful activity, the Hebrew word for worship, avodah, also means work, and
perhaps no act of worship requires more effort than one that asks mourners to praise God.
The death of a loved one—especially an untimely death—confronts even the most faithful Jew with
doubt. The bereaved mother of a five-year-old child is supposed to stand and “magnify and sanctify”
alongside a seventy-year-old son who has lost a ninety-year-old mother.
Exalted and hallowed be God’s greatness
In this world of Your creation.
In the mouth of the mourner, these words affirm that even death is part of God’s creation. Kaddish
asks Jews to hallow death—to take what might appear random, meaningless, and cruel, and speak of it
as part of the sacred whole. This is an enormous challenge—perhaps even a lifelong struggle. Many
view it as a goal.
Kaddish also pronounces acceptance of God’s judgment. There is no lamentation and certainly no
argument in the prayer, which recalls Job’s response to all the terrible things that befell him. In the
ultimate statement of acceptance, Job said, “Though God slay me, yet will I trust in God.”1
That was Job. The rest of humanity finds it harder to trust God completely in the face of loss and
suffering. Even so, all human beings must ultimately accept death. There is finally no way to answer
to “Why him?” “Why now?” Acceptance is a refuge from insanity; a way to find surcease of pain even
when there is no way to make sense of the loss.
Nevertheless, mourners are not expected to provide the final affirmation that is “Amen.” When
Kaddish is given its traditional call-and-response reading,2 the mourner says “v’im-ru,” which means
“and you should say.” The bereaved thus elicit an “Amen” from the community that rallies around
mourners for just this purpose. The “Amen” that comes from a mourner’s mouth is spoken with
quotation marks around it.
And Your sovereignty revealed
In the days of our lifetime
And the life of the whole house of Israel
Speedily and soon.
Although Kaddish gives voice to acceptance, it is not a statement of submission. In a way, it is a
petitionary prayer. It seeks nothing less than the redemption of the whole world—the perfection of
God’s creation. And not in the sweet by-and-by either, but soon, “in the days of our lifetime.”
The request for revelation of God’s “sovereignty” speaks to the timeless hope for the day when
justice will prevail and all people will live in peace. For most Jews, this vision of the end of days, of a
messianic time, depends upon human action rather than divine intervention. By doing what God asks
—working for peace and justice, performing mitzvot— human beings can bring about the kingdom of
heaven on earth. Kaddish reminds mourners of their obligation both to dream of such a world and to
build it—without delay.
This is not an easy message to hear or accept when your world has been shattered. Still, Kaddish is
given to mourners precisely because they are most aware of the fragility of life. The bereaved know
better than anyone that there is no time to waste in making God’s presence manifest in the world, both
in praising God’s name and in the work of repairing the world.3
May You be blessed forever,
Even to all eternity.
May You, most Holy One, be blessed,
Praised and honored, extolled and glorified,
Adored and exalted above all else.
Blessed are You.
Beyond all blessings and hymns, praises and consolations
That may be uttered in this world…
This long list of attributes—counted by various authorities as seven, ten, or even fifteen4—points to
God’s inscrutability and humanity’s inability to describe the Holy One, regardless of how many
praises we heap up.
The words have been given many translations: glorified and celebrated, lauded and praised,
acclaimed and honored, extolled and exalted, blessed, upraised, elevated. This is followed by another
series, again variously translated as songs, praises, psalms, consolations, blessings, hymns.
Kaddish puts this accumulation of affirmation into the mourner’s mouth, maintaining the
connection, however tenuous, between the bereaved and the Holy One. Someday, when the bereaved
can once again taste the food on his plate and delight in the birdsong outside her window, these praises
may no longer seem like an affront. Having recited Kaddish during their residence in the valley of the
shadow, there need be no shame for having doubted or even cursed God’s name in that dark place.
May peace abundant descend from heaven
With life for us and for all Israel…
May God, Who makes peace on high,
Bring peace to us and to all Israel.
Kaddish ends with a fervent double plea for peace, first in Aramaic and then, with nearly the same
words, in Hebrew. “Oseh shalom bim-romav” comes from a line found in the Book of Job, where
tragedy is ultimately transformed into a hard-won blessing.
The repetition of shalom, the most familiar of all Hebrew words, echoes like a promise of peace
after the petition for peace. There are many kinds of peace. Kaddish speaks to both inner peace and to
the peace of the whole world. And because of the connection between Kaddish and the ties that bind
families together, it is also very much about shalom bayit— peace within the home, within the family.
Every death leaves unfinished family business; saying Kaddish in memory of a loved one is one
way that mourners forgive the dead and themselves for words spoken in anger and for words of love
and forgiveness never given voice. Kaddish helps replace grudges and guilt with shalom— peace for
the mourner, peace among the mourners, peace for all the mourners of Zion.
AFTERLIFE: There is no mention of heaven in the Kaddish. Even though it is recited “in honor of” the
dead, and in spite of the fact that for centuries Jews thought of saying Kaddish as a way of
“redeeming” parents from hell (explained in Chapter 2, in the section “In History”), the afterlife is
conspicuously absent. This silence not only begs the question about what Jews believe about life after
death, it provides an answer, too.
There is not now, nor has there ever been, one unified doctrinal Jewish view of the afterlife. Jews
have embraced the gamut of beliefs about what happens to human beings after they die—from simple
decomposition to reincarnation, from elaborate depictions of heaven and hell to humanistic metaphors
about the biological legacy of children and the tangible-spiritual legacy of good works.5
Maimonides, the influential twelfth-century rabbinic interpreter, affirmed belief in an afterlife but
viewed the topic as utterly beyond human comprehension, and thus best left alone: “As to the blissful
state of the soul in the World to Come, there is no way on earth in which we can comprehend or know
it.”6 In the twentieth century, the overwhelming atrocity of the Holocaust nearly obliterated the idea
of a personal afterlife, and yet also renewed the ancient idea of a collective immortality within the
communal entity of the Jewish people.
The reticence of Kaddish about the afterlife leaves room for the great variety of Jewish belief about
the world to come (ha-olam ha-bah). But it also reflects Judaism’s commitment to the primacy of life
in this world (ha-olam ha-zeh). In marked contrast to Christian funerals, which usually mention a
reward in heaven or reunion with God and/or loved ones, the Jewish funeral liturgy never speaks of